Thomas Hobbes sobre la normatividad de la moralidad

VENEZIA, LUCIANO

Buenos Aires

Jornada; Cuartas Jornadas de Adscriptos y Becarios del Departamento de Filosofía; 2006

Departamento de Filosofía, Universidad de Buenos Aires

Hobbes presents two apparently contradictory theses about the relationship between rationality and morality. On the one hand, Hobbes argues that an agent has normative reasons to act morally if and only if he maximally satisfies his own utility in doing so (P); on the other hand, the author affirms also that an agent has normative reasons to act morally if and only if he has moral reasons to do it (M). The prima facie contradictory character of these propositions suggest that to make a coherent reading of Hobbes´s theory the interpreter must choose one of them, rejecting the other, either (P), «orthodoxy», or (M), «heterodoxy». The paper argues that (P) is introduced only in the state of nature, while (M) in the state of civil society, hence contending that the contradiction is only apparent.